[1] The Chief Officers of State Library Agencies was formed at the annual ASLA conference held in Las Vegas in 1973.
This was in response to the Nixon administration’s threat to cut funding to the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA) which provided resources to the states.
[2] COSLA procedures were modeled on those of the Council of Chief State School Officers.
COSLA's mission is to provide leadership on issues of common concern and national interest, to further state library agency relationships with the federal government and national organizations, and to initiate, maintain and support cooperative action for the improvement of library services.
[3] Membership includes the chief officer of each of the fifty state library programs in the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, as well as the ten provinces and three territories of Canada.